I just came from the local co-op where a half gallon of organic milk was nearly $5.00 and the cereal, much of which looked like granola and berries was $5.00 as well. I like granola in yogurt. I DO NOT like granola as cereal. I had a $5-6 budget for cereal and milk this morning. I walked out and went to the local bodega which of course has a $8 debit card minimum. She let me slide with $6.50. I should have went to Target yesterday.
All of this brings me to news around food deserts and #whitegroceries. According to Jorge Rivas at Colorlines, because of Michelle Obama’s advocacy around food, health and nutrician Walgreens and Walmart amongst other retailers are going to start to sell fruits and vegetables. Rivas writes,
Last week, Michelle Obama joined a group of large retail chains in announcing a plan to provide access to healthy, affordable food to millions of people in what have come to be known as the country’s food deserts. The retailers plan to open or expand over 1,500 stores over the next five years in rural and urban neighborhoods. The first lady’s high-profile endorsement, as part of her anti-obesity campaign, is the latest in her work with large chains, including controversial companies such as Wal-Mart, which has been greeted with both praise and criticism.
He goes on to say,
A 2010 report published by PolicyLink and The Food Trust found African Americans were nearly four times as likely to live in a food desert as whites.
The largest partnership announced was with Walgreens, the nation’s largest drugstore chain operating 7,773 stores nationwide—45 percent of those are in “underrepresented” communities, the White House said. Walgreens has committed to converting at least 1,000 stores into “food oasis” stores.
You know I Love to eat. I have a green thumb. My favorite room in a house is the kitchen.
I also know that having access to jobs, food and safe and affordable housing is a social justice issue and an issue of economic power.
I have three issues here.
First I would like to say that I am glad that this conversation is happening. However it seems to be lacking vision.
The three issues that are not being address are pleasure, marginalized low income earning bodies, jobs and seeing a corporate model as the only model.
I also know that folks who do work around health with marginalized bodies do NOT take into account how pleasure and education factors into the equation.
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Isn’t it more pleasurable, and albeit worse for your body to grab that Coke and some Doritos?
The second issue is jobs. Why is the main vehicle for addressing obesity only utilizing multinational corporations who could care less about whether or not children of any race get obese or whether or not they work.
Being poor is expensive. Having a minimum wage job is expensive.
Corporations are bound to their shareholders not to chubby children.
Where is the effort to build national network of year around, indoor outdoor farmers markets with youth led cooking classes.
I remember going to Housewives in downtown Oakland with my grandmother and momma. It was the closest thing to a indoor farmers market I have ever seen.
Young people would be paid to teach OTHER young people how to grow, buy, prepare, food.
Farmers markets could make a direct connection to the people who make their food.
Why the dependency on Walgreens?
Is having banana’s at Walgreens really going to make a big difference to a low income rural White teenager or a low income Black teenager in the city?
Here in Mass people receiving food benefits can use their cards at farmers markets for 50 cents on the dollar for up to 25 dollars.
I think the points you are making are spot on, and in some places people are sort of starting to make the connection.
A holistic approach is definitely necessary to make this healthy food vision possible.
I’ve been talking with others about the need for Michelle Obama to add farmers’ markets to the discussion. Good post.
Excellent post. All to often when I’m shopping the mini farmers market in Jamaica, N. Y., I’m asked “how do you cook that?”
There’s a critical need for food education, not just preparation but its benefits too! Coqmmercially prepared fast foods dominate the diets in the typical urban food desert. Obesity rates and the chronic diseases associated with obesity would decline with access to farmers markets & reduction
How do you cook that is a great question?
People LOVE talking about how you prepare things.
The bugged out thing is that cooking is an experimental, and expensive exercise. Public school low income students have experimentation beat out of them as a result of being taught to test.
How can little bears who have had the creativity drilled out of them, summon the creativity needed to live healthfully on a small amount of money. #Ummp. Lord knows I try, yet I have years and thousands of dollars worth of formal education. Both of my parents are cooks.
Starting at “how do you cook that” opens the door for learning, experimentation and collaboration. I love it.
Great post, Renina.
It is truly ironic that corporations are being called in to help solve a problem they have, if not created, then largely aided and abetted.
How we approach this in this country is so f-ed up. I remember hearing a piece on NPR a while back about some preschools in France. They had a chef, a source of organic produce, and the chef cooked healthy, tasy food–adult food, though, not kiddy food. And the teachers would spend lunchtime encouraging children to try new things. The idea was to develop their palates and let them explore all kinds of tastes etc. Why can’t we do something like that?
Like Renee, I’ve also had the “how do you cook that” question at the grocery store, usually when buying a somewhat unusual vegetable (like fennel). It is a great conversation starter. I like to tell people about epicurious, because I think it demystifies everything a bit and gives so many options–put in an ingredient or two, and find a bazillion recipes using those ingredients.
Don’t leave out the time and energy necessary to cook things! My mom on night-shift never had the energy to cook us a well rounded breakfast. I can only imagine how it is for someone working three jobs, all day everyday.
And to add to the ‘how do you cook that’ education, is ‘how to pick and choose good produce’ and ‘how do you store it’ (many people don’t know how to choose a good tomato, and they don’t know how to store it for maximum flavor and nutrient retainment). Another obstacle that faces low-income folks is that many of us are first or second generation immigrants. We don’t eat ‘typical American fare’, and don’t recognize it at the markets. Food education and exploration PLEASE. Thanks for writing about this. <3
Good post. I’m a journo who’s done a good bit of writing and reporting about this issue too. Another dimension of class analysis is that when a lot of middle and upper class people demand better food for food deserts, what they really mean is yuppie food, aka Whole Foods. In Chicago, a few years ago, there was a big debate in one westside neighborhood between black gentrifiers and longtime black residents about which grocery store they should give a building permit. The long-time residents wanted the budget store, Food for Less. The gentrifiers wanted a local high-price organic market.
I also see this type of friction in New York, where I now live. In my neighborhood, East Harlem, we have at least 5 large grocery stores or supermarkets, but middle class outsiders see it as a food desert, because none of them are Trader Joe’s.
I think this tension limits into our ability to see solutions to improving the quality of food in our neighborhoods. Instead of going out and launching a campaign to bring Whole Foods to the hood — and they are purportedly coming very soon — we could empower the existing grocers and bodegas to meet what we say are our needs.
I also like your idea of establishing more farmers markets. A few months ago, I wrote about a black woman who left her cushy middle class life to start a farm. She’s trying to organize people of color who are interested in food issues, working on a documentary and such. Check her out: http://www.dominionofnewyork.com/2011/11/02/a-farm-of-her-own-how-one-black-woman-waters-food-deserts/#.Ttodw7Ik6so